Hard Candy Shockdrop Packaging

The Hard Candy Shockdrop is one of the first Silicone/Polycarbonate shock absorbent cases avaliable for the iPad Air. It's currently selling on Amazon for $50 in two color options, bright red or black.

Hard Candy Shockdrop Components

Unlike other ultra-protective options from Otterbox, Griffin, Trident and others, the Hard Candy iPad Air case simply consists of a very thick silicone cover (10mm corner protection) with a rigid polycarbonate permanent screen protector frame. The lack of a complete clamshell polycarbonate design means it is probably less protective than the ultra-protective solutions out there, but it only adds 9oz of weight to the iPad Air, making it a good compromise.

Hard Candy Shockdrop Top View

All of the iPad ports on the shockdrop are accessible and are unobstructed. The Lightning and Mute Lock ports have rubber tabs which flip out and allow access. The home button responds nicely even when covered by the silicone, and the power/volume controls also perform as expected. Audio output from the bottom speaker still appeared strong with initial testing and microphone input also still continued to work well when tested with Siri and Google Now.